


Caesura

by raz0rgirl



Category: Raines
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:20:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raz0rgirl/pseuds/raz0rgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's during their last mandated appointment that Detective Michael Raines realizes he trusts Dr. Samantha Kohl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caesura

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jmtorres](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/gifts).



> I wanted to write you a case file (I even did research!), but this is what wanted to get written.

It's during their last mandated appointment that Detective Michael Raines realizes he trusts Dr. Samantha Kohl. Still not enough to be completely honest, true, but that's a function of circumstance. She's responsible and professional and would have to report his hallucinations if he told her about them, so telling the full truth remains out of the question. But he believes what she'd said during their first session about not being out to get him. And he can't deny the need to talk, _really talk_, and not be the one behind both sides of the conversation.

She's moved the appointment to the evening again. It's happened often enough that he thinks maybe they should just reschedule the appointments to the evenings in general before remembering that this is the last one. He wonders, not for the first time, about her life and what it means that she'll make this time for him. He hasn't done a clandestine background check, though he's been tempted to do so from the beginning. He knows himself well enough to understand that in spite of any good intentions, he'd use any personal information about her to try to control their interactions more than he already does. He likes that there's only so much he can get away with with her--respects her acuity. But it's still hard to open up.

He makes himself try.

"Thank you for rescheduling again," he says and sighs. "Tough day. Long."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks.

"Honestly, no." He gives her a wan smile. "But I will."

"Okay."

"We closed the Megan Smith case today. Got a confession."

"That's good."

"It is."

"But?" she prompts.

"But it's hard to let it go. At the end of the day, it's still..." He pauses, looking for the right words, then says, "It's still senseless, and she's still dead."

He has several cases going at any given time. But Megan Smith's murder was the one his mind foregrounded for the past few weeks, as this was the one whose victim appeared to him as a talking hallucination--one he felt compelled to talk back to, interact with, as he worked on the case. Dr. Kohl knows about the talking part. Everyone does. It's one of the things that cements his reputation as one of the department's eccentrics--Raines talks to the victims.

But he's kept from confessing that talking through his cases has turned into hallucinating as much as there's a part of him that wants to.

"The truth is that I'm tired," he hears himself say. It is a truth--part of it anyway.

"That's understandable," she says, and he nods a little, sure that she knows he's not just talking about tonight.

"Sometimes I think I never really learned how to compartmentalize," he says. "It's as if everybody says they do it, but maybe nobody really does."

She sits through his pause, patiently waiting for him to get his thoughts together.

"I've been working on what we talked about--talking to the victims in my head rather than out loud."

"Has that been working for you?"

"Mostly. Sometimes. Not always." He pulls the legs of his pants, straightening the creases, rubs his thighs, then taps his fingers on the arms of his chair, knowing she's cataloguing each movement, noting his agitation. "Sometimes I think it makes me more distracted." Another pause. "They also have to remain people to me. I can't... They have to be more than bodies or cases. When I don't talk to them, I feel like I lose sight of that somehow." He sighs. "It was easier with Charlie," he says. "Charlie never minded when I talked to myself."

Her smile is gentle and kind as she waits for him to collect himself, and he's thankful for it until she asks, "Has Captain Lewis discussed a new partner with you yet?"

He frowns and shifts in his chair, unable to cover his unease at the idea. "Not in so many words, no. Though he has made a few comments about it being dangerous when I go on interviews by myself."

"What do you say to that?"

"That it can be just as dangerous _with_ a partner."

He sees a flash of compassion in her eyes and looks away.

She asks, "What will you say when it does come up? Because it will. You can't avoid it forever."

He shrugs, still not looking at her as he answers, "I'd ask for more time."

"Time for what?"

_For the question to go away,_ he thinks, but says, "Time for Sally--Officer Lance--to take her detective exam. It's coming up soon. There's no way she won't pass it."

"You've mentioned her a lot," Dr. Kohl says. "You respect her."

"I do. She has the potential to be one of the best. Not just in terms of doing the work, but also because she's in it for all the right reasons. She cares, but she's still at the point where caring isn't keeping her up too many nights. And I think she'd probably be willing to work with me." He pauses, then says, "I trust her."

"Trust is important."

"You know that it is."

"Do you think she trusts you?"

"I'd hope so. It's something we would have to talk about."

"What else would you talk about?"

He thinks of the hallucinations again and realizes that he would like to be able to tell someone. That it's verging on dangerous that he doesn't, and it worries him that he's capable of keeping this secret. He'd never thought himself capable of being so irresponsible. Perhaps even unethical. But he fears the hallucinations would still come even if he told. Would he read a paper, see a news report, and think, _that should have been my case_? Have a houseful of dead voices accusing him of letting them down without the respite of being able to do something about it?

But then, he never thought he'd end up where he is, either--with an ex-wife he still can't communicate with who's grieving another man. A dead partner. Only ghosts to keep him company. They're not ghosts--just products of his uneasy mind. But they haunt him just the same. Keep him awake. Distract him and blur too many lines--the kinds of lines he _has to_ keep clear to do his job. Blurred lines that could put a partner in danger.

For a terrible moment, he sees Sally as he'd seen Charlie, on the ground, lifeless, half of her head gone. He tastes bile as the horror of it settles briefly in his gut before he pushes it away.

"We'd have to talk about what it would mean to step into the place of a dead partner," he says, finally. "For both of us."

"Is that something you're willing to do?" Dr. Kohl asks.

It's a relief when he's able to answer yes and mean it.

They continue to talk until Dr. Kohl quietly says, "Time," and he nods and makes a decision.

"That was number ten," he says. "You're off the hook. And so am I."

She gives him a piercing look but says nothing, again waiting for him to fill the quiet. She could have been formidable at interrogation, he thinks, and the corner of his mouth quirks into a small grin. She inclines her head as if to ask about the grin but waits him out until he says, "So you know how you don't see cops anymore?"

"Yes," she says.

"How would you feel about having a cop as a client on a regular basis?"

Dr. Kohl smiles. Michael Raines hopes.

**Author's Note:**

> To jmtorres: I'm sorry I wasn't able to do what you requested because it really was a great prompt. Raines' tenth therapy session with Kohl was intended to be the frame around the casefile story that I wanted to tell, but I couldn't get that part to work in time.


End file.
